So, this is pretty awesome. I have spent many years reading about the history of religion, and i think that the subject is very interesting. I could have spent all of those years doing nothing except reading about religion, and still only scratched the surface of this:

Just a segment of the awesome.

That’s just a snapshot. To see the whole thing (and to zoom in and scroll around), click here or the image itself. The complex history and sheer number of religious traditions is astonishing to see displayed this way. I could get lost in this image for hours.

Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the fact that we can categorize religious traditions into a tree says something about the nature of religion, and of human culture in general. Human culture, including religion, does not come out of a vacuum. Religion is not revelations from up high, it is natural, organic, and growths from us.

In one sense, religions are beautiful in that they represent not only what is amazing and sublime, but also what is terrifying and dangerous, about our ability to create and to interpret the world. They are windows into our “souls;” glimpses of what we could be–both good and bad. They are dreams and nightmares all at once, prying under our mundane lives into the engines of possibility.

And yet, for all that is good in them, there are paths which can clean up the mess and the grime attached to these fantastic reveries. There is a way to drain out the dirty water of fantasy and to know what is real, and as we advance in our understanding we learn more and more about how to do this. The growth of this religion tree will not cease, but it may be pruned by this method. There will always be branches of this religious tree, I’m willing to wager, but the branches which survive will have to contest with another tree.

Science, empiricism, and skepticism generally owe much of its existence to the intellectual traditions of this religion tree, but it is a different type of organism. Entangled, all too often, with this massive faith tree, skepticism takes root in a part of us which seeks to avoid the siren songs of Nietzsche’s old metaphysical bird catchers. That ground is fertile, but for many it is foreign soil. I hope that changes, because our culture needs better soil, if we are too grow, thrive, and survive.

So, once again I get to quote my favorite passage from Nietzsche, referred to above, because I think it encapsulates my values better than just about any collection of words I’ve yet seen:

To translate man back into nature; to become master over the many vain and overly enthusiastic interpretations and connotations that have so far been scrawled and painted over the eternal basic text of homo natura; to see to it that man henceforth stands before man as even today, hardened in the discipline of science, he stands before the rest of nature, with Oedipus eyes and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping at him all too long, “you are more, you are higher, you are of a different origin!”—that may be a strange and insane task, but it is a task

I wrote this as part of an email correspondence with a new friend. I thought some others might be interested in seeing it:

The physical world is not an illusion. It may not be exactly as we perceive it, but what we perceive is not a lie, but merely one (of many) perspective. If you are familiar with Kant, then you might say that while we have phenomena, we can’t access the noumenal (the real world behind our mere perception). I reject Kant’s, and this Vedantic-style, metaphysics, because I reject the idea that there is a hidden reality behind the shadows on the wall (I think Plato’s cave analogy was completely backwards). We actually see the real world, it’s just that our perceptual gear does not see all of it (our evolutionary survival does not require an infinite resolution of perception) and so our brains often makes up for what we don’t see by filling in based upon experience and pattern-recognition. That is, what we perceive is not the world fully as it is (it can only be made up of one perspective at a time; that’s why it’s called subjectivity), but it is at least one real perspective on what is really there. If it were possible to see a room from all, or at least many, perspectives simultaneously (that’s a contradiction), then we would be objective beings (an oxymoron, like I said before). Subjectivity creates a problem of perspective, but the illusion exists in the description it creates, not the thing it is describing.

I’ve always liked this saying:

Before Zen, mountains were mountains and trees were trees. During Zen, mountains were thrones of the spirits and trees were the voices of wisdom. After Zen, mountains were mountains and trees were trees.

I don’t know what this word “spiritual” means. I have been asking people for years, and every time it seems to be a metaphorical rendering of subjective projection onto reality, rather than a peek at some actually real reality past the illusion of Satan, maya, etc. If we look at the world as a quantum fuzzy cloud of indeterminate particles, that is one perspective on reality. But at another level of description–that of tables, chairs, people, air, fire, etc–are all equally valid and real perspectives. Just because the solidity of matter is not real at all levels does not mean it is not a real description at others. The same way that I am technically (physically) a different set of molecules that I was a decade ago and I perpetually change in many ways, I am also the same fundamental person in many other ways. There is no contradiction there. Language is the source of the illusion, not reality itself.

In my experience, the various mystical and spiritual traditions from world history, including Buddhism, are largely about the nature of our description of the world, and not the world per se. They are linguistics, not metaphysics or ontology. In the postmodern era, linguistics and metaphysics get entangled in ways that are problematic. There is what the world actually is (which we use skepticism and empiricism to discover) and there is the problem of perception, description, and cognitive processes, which only have the power to deal with subjective description. We must dis-entangle linguistics from metaphysics.

Science is the method by which we eliminate cognitive and subjective biases and errors (as much as we can) to describe reality. There are interesting things to think about in terms of exploring “spirituality” and other mystical pursuits (through art, for example), but these things don’t teach us about reality outside of ourselves. what they teach is how we perceive the world, not what the world is. Language, art, and mysticism are only about understanding the nature of perception, language, and description of reality, and are always imprecise. They teach us no facts, and may only accidentally tell us anything about reality.

In dealing with periodic depression and even moments of feeling invincible, powerful, and brilliant (which I know I am not), I sometimes have this sensation of this overwhelming sense of certainty concerning the thoughts which inhabit my mind. When I feel confident, I believe it. When I feel powerless, I believe it. And sometimes, not often but significantly, I have another kind of experience associated with a different kind of certainty; not of the nature of the world, but of my relationship to it.

It is a feeling of transcendence, being able to comprehend issues in a way which are barely articulate, but which my mind is able to dance with freely for a little while. And then it goes away, and I am unable to describe it well in many cases. Sometimes, these ideas turn into blog posts. This is not an example.

In fact, the idea I did have earlier today, while at work, fizzled away as I had no time to jot down the mnemonic phrase which would have stored it for me for later. This post is, in fact, started as an attempt to resurrect this idea, but is turning into a meta-idea about a dead idea. A eulogy of sorts.

The ideas contained here are the neighbors of this idea, vaguely related by adjacency and possibly kinship, but missing it almost entirely. Like the dead, I can now only speak of it in vague, impersonal terms. I knew this idea, for a moment, but it is gone now perhaps to never be met again. So, rather than merely despair at it’s loss, perhaps we should meet it’s family and perhaps a piece of it will shimmer through them.

—

There is a feeling that I have, sometimes, which I could call spiritual. In fact, I used to think of it in this way (sort of), until I started to think about the concept of spirituality and found it to be an empty, meaningless term. It simply does not point to anything. It seems to point to something, and this seeming is tied to very powerful parts of our mind, and so this seeming is overwhelming and convincing.

I am not sure, but I think that this type of experience is what people refer to when they talk about having spiritual experiences. I’ve had them all of my life, but never associated them with either god or anything else supernatural. What association I used to have with them, while younger, would have been with some sort of Buddhist enlightenment, Taoist insight into the Dao, or perhaps even apprehending a part of Tillich’s Ground of Being.

But don’t worry, you have not lost me to any religious rebirth, or even a crisis of lack-of-faith. In fact, I have been aware of such concepts, both intellectually and experientially, for many years. I just never interpreted them as anything (much) more than my brain being weird. In centuries past, I might have had little choice but to choose a religious life of sorts, having the proclivities to think about things in the ways that many mystics have in the past. I’m glad I’m alive now. This life is much more to my liking than that of a monk or strange religious hermit.

Yeah, I’m some sort of atheist mystic. HA! Saint ShaunPhilly, indeed.

This sensation usually leaves me with a strong feeling of community and connection to others. I feel stronger emotional ties to people in my life after such experiences. I have the sensation of being tied to people around me by some bond, almost tribal in nature, which is almost compelling enough to give the spiritual-but-not-religious some slack.

Almost.

But because I’m also very prone to self-challenging moments of skepticism (OK, cynicism too), I realize that this sensation is an illusion. And so when I talk with people who get caught up in describing things this way, and tie it to some religious worldview, vague spirituality, etc I am both amused and annoyed. In such moments I’m watching people rationalize a completely natural brain phenomenon (an interesting one, no doubt) as a spiritual experience, and they are interpreting it as some truth about the universe, and not just a truth about how consciousness often does NOT correlate with reality.

Yes, such experiences teach us things about ourselves, but usually mostly in the context of how the brain processes which make us up operate in relation to reality, and not about reality itself. Self knowledge and perspective are important, but we do need to have a skeptical method (science) at hand to check our conclusions against. We need to check our biases, as well as we can, to make sure that we don’t draw the wrong conclusions.

Because when we draw conclusions (which often occurs in a cultural context which is drenched in religious and theological baggage) without skeptical checks, we start to divide ourselves into doctrinal tribes via the similarity of our conclusions. But we have to be careful to not think I’m talking about religion per se here, because this is a thing we all do (atheists included) and is not limited to religion.

The tribalism which religion utilizes in order to build community, but also to build walls, seems tied to this sense of connectedness which I was describing above. Granted, for some this connectedness is associated with a human family (these tend to be liberals) rather than a nationalistic or truly tribal connectedness (conservatives). This sense of tribalism is more fundamental than religion, but religion uses it well.

Religion is not the source of anything accept its own peculiar theological logic puzzles. Religion is, rather, a strange combination of various cognitive, emotional, and social behaviors and processes. Getting rid of religion would solve nothing. Instead, we need to be focused on improving our awareness of how the basic parts of human behavior–emotional blind spots, cognitive biases, and social herd behavior–influence our worldviews and beliefs, so that we can be sure that those beliefs are rational.

In short, we need to be more aware of how our private experience leads to emergent properties in human behavior. We only have control (limited though it is) of our own mind, and our influence of others will grow from this.

—

Have you ever been socially talking with a bunch of liberal-minded people about religion? You know, the types who are not religious themselves (or only vaguely so), but who will speak very respectfully about religions and view criticism as some angry and irrational hatred of other people’s beliefs? They don’t believe any of it (or most of it, at least), but they will not tolerate criticism of people’s sacred cows. You know, those shouting “Islamophobia” recently.

No?

Well, I have. Hell, I graduated from a Quaker school in liberal Philadelphia, so this was my upbringing. What I learned, over the years is that in many cases what is happening in such encounters was that these spiritual thoughts, feelings, and experiences are somewhat common, especially among sensitive and educated liberals (remember, I’m a liberal in many ways myself, so this is in many ways an internal, and in some ways a self-,criticism). To criticize the concept in general, and not just specific theological claims, is to criticize their own experience (and thus to criticize them).

And I hope I don’t need to tell you that while liberals are much better, at least where politics comes in, at maintaining a rational scientific literacy and understanding, they fail in many ways. Profoundly. Big Pharma, sophisticated theology, theistic evolution, and…dare I say it…New Age….

This “spiritual” awareness it pretty ubiquitous, and pulling away the curtain to reveal the “wizard” behind it is pretty unsettling. And when people are unsettled, they act tend to act poorly. All people have qualities, deep inside and unchosen, which are good and bad. The problem is that religion allows you to rationalize the bad ones, while giving you the sensation of having provided the good ones in the first place. The sense of community of an idea, of connectedness and belonging, makes it feel acceptable to rationalize terrible thinking. Because while most of us have the impulse to think certain things, having an organized group of people who call that idea the truth is a means of escape from thinking more about it.

Skeptics and atheists are not, qua skepticism or atheism, mean or overly-critical people. But without a doctrine to appeal to, a skeptic is forced to use reason (and hopefully they will do so) when faced with a challenge. But those who are attached to the spiritual, the religious, and to theology have a bubble around them which keeps them further away from the skeptical tools they have access to. They are capable of using those tools, but when emotions come into play, they seem to be too far away to get hold of.

Here’s to more people abandoning that bubble.

And here’s to an idea, lost, but which was born within the family of these ideas and which may one day be raised again.

Maybe on the third day. I do go back to work then, so it would make it most annoying for it to be then since I’ll likely forget it again.

So, I just got an email about a movie about Deepak Chopra, called Decoding Deepak. This was the content of the email:

Hi Atheist,

SnagFilms would like to get your expert opinion on the figure of Deepak Chopra. Our film DECODING DEEPAK will be in theaters, on cable on demand, and on iTunes October 5th. Gotham Chopra follows his father Deepak for a year to try to better understand him not only as a person but also as a spiritual leader. Controversially, the film shows a side of Deepak that lacks spiritual sincerity.

We would love to get your feedback regarding the film and about Deepak. If you would like to do a post about the film we will include it on our site/through SnagFilms social media network. Please share this film with your readers, and you can find more information at http://www.snagfilms.com/decodingdeepak/.

Thanks and please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Jamie

Now, i have not written much about Deepak Chopra on this blog (I have mentioned him, as an example of spiritual idiocy a few times), and I am not an expert on his ideas, so I am curious how Jamie go my contact information. I intend to ask.

If you browse over to the website, you can find this video:

You’ll see that the film is made by, or at least prominently features, his son Gotham Chopra. The film is presented as a sort of personal journey shared by the Chopras, but because I have known a little about Deepak Chopra’s vague, meaningless, spirituality for some time, I am not compelled to watch this film.

Will any skeptics out there watch this film and report? I do not plan on wasting my time.

As a ‘philosopher,’ by which I mean a person inclined toward reflection, I am prone to moments of space-gazing. In fact, most ideas that I have, some of which spawn posts here, occur in moments of apparent wall-gawking.

I am hesitant to call these moments “being lost in rational thought.” In such moments it is not words or linear propositions that I experience, but rather a sort of music of concepts, flowing in harmony, disharmony, and occasional crescendo of luminescence. And upon further reflection I can often put these experiences to words (and often I cannot) and subject them to analysis. I can’t help but think of Douglas Hofstadter in such moments, and anyone familiar with his work will probably understand what I mean.

In moments such as these I believe I understand the mystic, the “spiritual but not religious,” and perhaps most aptly, the meditative state which accompanies many a priest of various traditions. It is moments like these that I experience a sort of transcendence, a fact that may not seem likely to many because I am a materialistic atheist. It is here where I appreciate Sam Harris’ view about the usefulness and importance of many eastern traditions of meditation, where many other atheists do not.

Where I think many people go wrong in this ‘mystical’ or ‘spiritual’ experience is allowing oneself to live within this phenomenological experience without exterior context. It is, after all, a subjective and internal experience, and its emotional and existential power is overwhelming. But I urge people to not become completely distracted by this beauty (by all means allow yourself to enjoy it!), at least insofar as to become lost in the parochial halls of ones own mind.

There really is an external world out there. And while the philosopher in me wants to proclaim some radically skeptical caveat there, I know that this hallway leads nowhere worth pursuing, having walked its path into the darkness and seeing no end or distant light. And part of our experiences, as a brain prone to illusion, delusion, and terrible fallacy, is that we have to take whatever steps we can to not become enchanted by the magicians within us. Because just like a con-man or mentalist, our own mental attributes will fool us and we may become convinced that there must be magic behind the slight-of-mind that is our consciousness. And just like those con-men or mentalists, there is always a rational explanation.

It has been a long road to get here, historically, to a time when we have access to the methodologies employed by skeptics; logic, rational analysis, and the empiricism native to science. These are the best tools we have to look at ourselves from the outside. Not quite an objective experience, as that is impossible by definition, but a way to extend our subjective experience to include the filter of, well, reality.

This is why science is so important. It’s not that it makes the whole of what religious traditions have left us irrelevant, but it allows us to distinguish between what is is real and what is the illusion inherent to our perceptual attributes. Much of philosophy, mysticism, and even our common sense thinking is mired in these illusions, and without at least the unconscious use of skeptical thinking we are doomed to become entranced by them. The stronger the skeptical toolbox we have, the better we become at seeing around corners and avoiding our phenomenological pitfalls.

(Makes me want to say “the skepticism is strong in this one.” But hat would be nerdy)

There is no incompatibility between science and spirituality, if by spirituality we mean the phenomenological experience of transcendent thought which raises us above what we already understood or experienced. Nietzsche used the term “spirit” to refer to many things about us, none of the supernatural, and I would like to keep such company and continue this tradition, while making sure not to be confused with the supernatural-laced spirituality that pervades our culture like a cancer. If you have another word for what I mean, I have no quarrel with you, as I understand how many connotations the term ‘spiritual’ has, most which are inconsistent with a naturalistic worldview.

These types of experiences are not the domain of religion, but religion has usurped them in the same way that religion has usurped morality, social activity, and ritual. Part of the coming struggle for the atheist community will be finding ways to express these human needs (and they are needs for many, but not all) in a secular way.

And no, not every aspect of religious life will need a secular analog, as many of the aspects of theological and teleological thinking are fundamentally absurd and broken. But that which is natural, human, and worth keeping such as the moments of beauty that we, even as atheists, have can be found without the silly theological baggage which weighs us down and holds us back.

I get into a lot of arguments with people. Sometimes, the argument gets ugly, and sometimes it is not. I’m just one of those people that cares about what is true, and so when someone says something I find to be unjustified or that I have reasons to disagree with, I often say something.

This often leads to me being called “closed minded,” arrogant, etc.

Just in the last couple of days I have had an email correspondence which started on a polyamory discussion list with someone who seems to consider himself spiritual, and who commented that he has become more serene since he stopped arguing with religious people (it was this and some other things I’ve been annoyed by that led to yesterdays blog about spiritual but not religious people).

I was offended by a comment he made, and tried to explain why I was offended, but it didn’t stick for him.

In any case, I wrote him back late last night, and thought some of the points I made would be relevant to people that might run into this blog.

With no further yapping on my part, here is the entire email:

I am quite aware that your email was not about me. I was replying to the content that I disagreed with. My offense at your comment needs some unpacking for you to understand why I was offended. I’ll get to that at the end of this email.

First I want to say that I notice among many people, in fact this seems to be common wisdom, an unspoken assumption about beliefs. There seems to be a notion that there is an automatic validity to a belief simply because it works for people, or simply because they have it. Yes, people rely on things, but I don’t believe it is enough to say that they rely on it and therefore it’s not my place to judge it or even to comment on it. After all, people have a right to their beliefs, right?

I believe this idea is wrong-headed. And, more importantly, I don’t think it’s true just because I believe it. This speaks to the unspoken assumption above. I have this belief for reasons, not just because it works for me. This is the crux of the issue for me; I think that people’s beliefs should be justified rationally, or they are not worthy of respect by anyone else. Of course people have a right to their beliefs, but they don’t have the right to not have their ideas criticized.

An acquaintance and personal favorite leader in the atheist community has become known for asking “What do you believe, and why do you believe it?” I think this is an important question, and I think that in the attempt to be tolerant, diverse, and respectful this question often gets left behind in the cultural maelstrom (especially in liberal circles).

You said:

Just because you “vehemently view spirituality as meaningless” doesn’t mean that it is. In fact its one of the biggest driving forces in the human experience for many. The fact that you got so offended may suggest that its not quite as meaningless to you as you say.

This, I believe, is a symptom of the problem. It’s not merely that I believe this, I believe this for reasons. I am not merely asserting it and saying that it’s true. It’s not that this idea works for me, it’s that I think it can be defended rationally. But you didn’t address the content of the claim at all. I find that to be fascinating, because I would hope that a claim I make would not merely be swept aside with the broom of ad populum, but rather challenged. Why wasn’t it challenged?

Your comment was not a challenge as to the merit of the proposition or to content therein, but rather to whether it was an idea that worked for people. The fact that it is a driving force for people has absolutely nothing to do with its validity. Truth is not determined by what ideas people like, and it is truth that I am interested in. I am offended by the apparent shrugging off of pursuits of truth in the name of mere pragmatism. These issues are questionable, investigatable, and conclusions can be drawn with good evidence. The fact that people use these ideas in their lives does not make them immune to the criticism that can be provided.

I believe that they are physical events in the brain too but who’s to say that our brains weren’t wired like that in order to produce that spiritual experience by a creator? I believe that science and spirituality should be joined at the hip instead of being in opposition and I think fortunately things are headed in that direction.

I cannot [dis]prove that such a creator exists who created our brains such. But I see no cause to believe it. What if the world were created by an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spaghetti monster, or blue dwarfs that currently live in my closet? I can’t disprove those ideas either, but why should I believe any of them? The issue is not whether I can disprove the idea of such a creator, the question is what evidence is there for belief in such a thing? What would compel me to believe it? My whims and what works for my life are not relevant here.

Until there is some reason to believe so, it is rational to not believe. It’s called the null hypothesis. Do you believe in the dwarfs in my closet? if not, why not? Who is to say they don’t exist? I’m betting you don’t believe in them, and I don’t consider it respectful to say “hey, whatever works for you.” I find this condescending and disrespectful of my ability to think critically and take criticism. If I believe something you find unjustified, why would you pretend otherwise and merely shrug it off? That’s how we treat children, not adults. Our beliefs affect the decisions we make, and unjustified beliefs often lead to decisions that affect the world around us.

As for science and spirituality, they are not necessarily at odds. The simple fact is that they are at odds through investigation, that is by accident of the beliefs of spiritual people not standing up to scrutiny. And when they are not at odds with science, the thing stops being called spiritual but is then called part of the confirmations of science. It is like the difference between medical science and alternative medicine; when it works, it’s simply called science and no longer is alternative. The claims of spiritualism have been tested and have failed repeatedly. There is no counter-example I have ever seen to this claim. Look into James Randi’s million dollar challenge. The fact that nobody has won it is telling.

And no, things are not headed in the direction of science and spirituality being reconcilable. Despite what morons like Deepak Chopra and the other goons at HuffPo say, there is most definitely a distance between them. Some, like the Templeton foundation, will seem to say otherwise, but the arguments are spurious. If you are curious about ths issue, I suggest the JREF (linked above), the Paryngula blog, or the general skeptics community (say the skepchicks blog).

I’m not a religious scholar by a long shot. All I know is my own personal experience. And I know that I became a much more serene person when I stopped vehemently opposing religious people (still struggle with Fox news types). They aren’t all the same.

I am a student of the philosophy of religion. In fact, that is what I have my MA in. This does not make me right, but it implies I have spent considerable time thinking about these things. But that does not matter…. I have experiences too. I used to wonder if they were spiritual in nature, but then I seriously investigated this question, and found that such an explanation is not rationally warranted. It is not enough to say that you have a different conclusion, you need to demonstrate why or I have no reason to respect your ideas.

The fact that you became more serene person when you stopped opposing religious people says nothing for the validity of whatever spiritual ideas you took on since then. When a person changes through experience with a new religion, spiritual tradition, etc it does not imply that the ideas they adopted did the changing or that those ideas are true. That’s simply a tremendously bad argument. And of course they are not all the same, although there are often common characteristics among them.

There are plenty of good, strong, intelligent people who believe in a higher power on this planet. To paint them all with the same broad stroke is as close minded as a fundamentalist is about non-fundamentalists.

I have never done this. I am very aware that people who believe such things vary greatly, and I try as much as possible to try and address what they specifically claim and address those claims. What I am saying is that insofar as a person accepts faith as a strength, I think that it points to a problem. People use faith in many ways, for many beliefs, and with different temperaments. But we have to step back and ask what faith is. It is belief in something despite a lack of evidence or in the face of contradictory evidence. If there were evidence, there would be no need for faith, because there would be reasons to believe. personal, internal experiences are not enough for other people, and they do not provide evidence that you have not misinterpreted your experience and attributed it to something imaginary rather than a more mundane and material explanation. Until someone gives reasons to believe in spiritual ideas, people have to rely on faith and problematic personal experiences.

This is incontrovertibly a weak position to be in intellectually and rationally. If it isn’t, please explain why it isn’t.

My view is not closed minded, it is considered and measured. I think that believing in things for which their is no, or at least poor, evidence is not an intellectual, personal, or social strength. How is that closed minded?

Finally, why was I offended. I was offended because we atheists are tired of hearing that things like morality, personal strength, and wisdom come from divine or spiritual sources. It implies that those who don’t believe in such things cannot be moral, strong, or wise. By associating spirituality with good attributes, you imply that people like me are not capable of it. If I were to say that all the people I know who are strong, wise, and good were atheists and that atheism is the key to being like those people, would you not take offense at the implication inherent to this?

This is simple discrimination of people who don’t believe in the kinds of things you believe. It is based on faulty assumptions and poor logical thinking, and it leads to real discrimination, demonization, and distrust of atheists. Recent studies have shown atheists to be the least trusted group in America (even below Muslims). I’m offended because you essentially claimed that an atheist cannot be a good person. I doubt this was your intent, but it is the result nonetheless. I’m just trying to give you a touch of consciousness-raising about discrimination against atheists and its unseen sources in common wisdom, as evidenced by your comment. You are doing actual harm to real people, probably unintentionally, by promoting a meme that is simply false.

Please understand that I’m trying to communicate in good…faith. I’m not attacking you, I’m trying to get you to understand where I’m coming from.

—

His reply was to say “You’re right” and then to sign off. I can’t help but feel patronized with an intent to discontinue conversation.